Anyone who’s followed Fallible Blogma for awhile knows that I love Mother Teresa quotes.
Here I’ve compiled seven of them (into seven simple steps) that help me every day. Try reading them daily (or weekly) to help keep priorities in order and life in proper perspective. No matter how many times I read them, I always end up more inspired than I was before.
Step one: Slow down.
“I think the world today is upside down. Everybody seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater development and greater riches and so on. There is much suffering because there is so very little love in homes and in family life. We have no time for our children, we have no time for each other; there is no time to enjoy each other. In the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.”
Step two: Make some room.
“If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.”
Step three: Open your eyes.
“Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”
Step four: Put great love into the small things.
“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”
Step five: Do not tire.
“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.”
Step six: Remember – it’s faithfulness, not success.
“God doesn’t ask that we succeed in everything, but that we are faithful. However beautiful our work may be, let us not become attached to it. Always remain prepared to give it up, without losing your peace.”
Step seven: Leave the rest to Jesus.
“Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus.”
Hope those help you as much as they continually help me!
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
These are really nice. Thanks for posting them.
She was always so simple yet so profound in her life and in her words. What a wonderful gift from God she is to the world, may He make us like her, and in doing so, make us like Himself. Blessed Mother Teresa, pray for us!
Great post!
Thank you, Matthew, for sharing these wonderful bits of wisdom. I will do my best to follow them…
Many thanks for this powerful message.
Armiger Jagoe, editor of The Joyful Catholic
http:///thejoyfulcatholic.wordpress.com/
Matthew — you can stop all your other wonderful and awesome activities. Just resend this out every day until you meet Mother for real… Blessings. dt
I read this at our Catholic Schools prayer group yesterday. Everyone had moments of “ouch” as well as moments of encouragement. Thanks for the great reflections. Blessed Mother Teresa pray for us!
God is good all the time.. He will always make a way to enlighten me whenever i am discouraged.
Thank you Mother Teresa for your inspiring message.
That was wonderful to read! Thank you for the post.
Thanks so much for this. I’m going to print it & put it up on my wall at work.
This is great!! :) Thank you for sharing it with us.
Thank you for posting. Will print out!
Will share at next week’s study group.
And now to go home and invest some time in housework. (Never tire?)
Her early grace-filled statements witness to us so strongly.
[From before dawn til into the night, she speaks to us of following Jesus in practical terms: serving, praying always - infusing action with a metaphysical dimension of the presence of Christ}
Yet her night is so dark, her refusing to 'give up' so tenaceous, that she must be a beacon in our darkness (the darkness of doubt that besets som many modern Christians).
In a strange way she points to Christ for we are not allowed to rely on her.
[Only ever had a query re Mother Teresa:
surely if we serve 'Christ in them' we fail to see the individual before us - surely we must serve each as valuable in and of themselves as members of a humanity that God sent His Son to Save and that Christ was willing to die for - to serve them because of Christ not because they are Christ?
But how can we not but love this woman who so personified LOVE?]
I am very glad you posted these. Im very young still and have no authority in my home, and even though i would love to go to church every sunday, my parents find it useless. I try to be a good catholic/christian but its very hard when my parents lost sight of what that means a long time ago. Reading these show me that other than praying before i go to bed each night, i can still make my every day actions
holy as well.
Thank you for this article. Valuable advice!
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